Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Truth and Consequences

Recently I was a substitute in one of my former teacher's classrooms. When I walked into his classroom I was flooded with dreadful memories of my teen health class. Thankfully, I was only teaching English that day. Even so, it was quite an interesting experience for many reasons.

I don't remember much about my teen health class. I remember that the standard - don't do drugs, sleep is good for you, first aid - messages were present, but I have no idea how they were taught or any specifics. I do remember some specifics of the reproductive section. I remember some girls walking around the class with the pregnancy belly, though that did not deter one of the girls who became pregnant before finishing high school. I also remember the serious warning that a girl can become pregnant at any time in her cycle and that there is no way to know what time that is going to be. Was this a scare tactic or an actual fact? We went over statistical success rates of different methods. We also were taught multiple times that just because the Trojan brand is "most trusted" does not mean it is the "most trustworthy" - obviously this wasn't an abstinence only program.

Why do I still have issue with this 8 years later? Because it was a lie and there are consequences to lies. If one oddball teacher said this, no big deal - most people listened to him just enough to pass the class. The problem is, most of society says the same thing and it hurts me to know women I care about are being misinformed throughout their whole lives, starting with teen health class. My previous post on "Who is man for woman..." talks about lying with our bodies when using contraception. Lying is bad and can result in consequences. 13% of women face fertility issues and studies show that artificial contraception and abortion increase those rates. NFP charts back this up with infertile patterns seen when stopping hormonal contraceptives.

Quick story to put my anger and passion on this topic into perspective. I know someone who has been married for a couple years. She started the pill in high school for abdominal pain. She stayed on it for 8 years until she wanted to conceive. Since that time she has been unsuccessful, been diagnosed with PCOS, gone through major surgery, and had to change her diet and start taking Clomid. She is the one that brought this up and how she was upset her doctors didn't take the time to diagnose PCOS in the first place to treat her symptoms instead of just covering them up. When are doctors going to stop lying and saying this is a miracle pill and start taking a genuine interest in helping/treating their patient's individual needs?

2 comments:

The sad thing is when even the doctors don't know. I've heard that they are never taught any of the basics which NFP is based on in med school. (And of course they aren't taught modern NFP - instead just laughing at the rhythm method). If they don't know anything different, their only option is to promote the pill; when that masks the symptoms, they think it's a success.

But how can I (someone who never even took college biology) change med schools? I guess the only (and best) thing I personally can do is pray about that. And hope I get in contact with people who are in that field, and then have the courage and intelligence to discuss this with them!

As for what can you do? I have no background in biology either, but in my NFP teacher training we were given references to the Physicians' Desk Reference - the accurate stats are in there! And maybe it is just because I went to a Christian college, but my friends that went into nursing were taught accurately about NFP. Maybe things are changing? Hopefully more recently graduated doctors know more...